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that his son will be torn from him just at the period, when his talents are beginning to be developed. To procure a subtitute has now become heavily expensive. What then remains for the wretched father, but to submit to his fate; give his son a military education, suffer him to become a soldier and be undone. To refinement, to morals, to literature, and to religion, he then most infallibly becomes dead.

If however we proceed to examine the actual state of literature without speculating on the future, it must be confessed, that in natural history, in the mathematicks, particularly as they are connected with the art of war, and above all in chemistry the character of the nation perhaps never before stood equally high. Such a constellation of talents, as the mathematical and physical class of the Institute exhibits, I suppose we might look for in vain in any other country of Europe. Without attempting to depreciate these sciences, for I am full of respect for them, it may however be observed, that although they call forth as much acuteness and even genius as any others, yet as they are advanced by immediate deduction from experiments, without many foreign intermediate ideas, they are connected with fewer collateral subjects, and demand therefore less previous and subsidiary acquisition, than the other branches of knowledge. If so, the great and merited renown of Fourcroy, Berthollet, and Vauquelin; of La Grange, Legendre, and La Place ;* of Cuvier, Haüy, and Lacépéde,howeverjustly it may

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be appealed to, as a proof that the ingenuity of the nation has suffered no decay, does not alone assure us that its less severe sciences, its philosophy and taste, flourish without diminution.

Excepting then in physicks and mathematicks, if you inquire what standard scientifick works have appeared within the last fifteen years, the answer must be, none,

In metaphysicks this is not strange, since from some cause the French have never been very successful in its cultivation. Some of the works of Condillac are of value, but for his most important ideas he is indebted to Locke. The present metaphysicians content themselves with giving new names to old ideas, reviving exploded doctrines, writing flimsy books on materialism, from which they deduce a kind of Epicurean atheism, making distinctions without differences, and concluding with some flourish about the progress of science, reason, and illumination. The writers most in vogue at present are Cabanis and De Tracy.

On the subject of philosophy, including morals, I suppose I must be prejudiced; but certainly I find no traces of what I have been acaccustomed to in the English school. They who call themselves their votaries wander now only in the gardens of Epicurus ; they retire not to the recess of Pythagoras, they sit not in the Academy of Plato, in the Lyceum of Aristotle, nor under the Portico of Zeno; how then should they enter the humble walks of the lowly. and unassuming Nazerene? No; if, so long ago as when Dr. Priestley visited France, he was stared at when he avowed his sincere belief of Christianity; they would now weigh it very seriously against

his other claims to distinction. In a late number of the Revue, when noticing a new edition of the works of Rollin, they gravely apologize for giving the name of philosopher to one, who was at the same time a Christian and a Jansenist.-But enough at present of a subject, on which I cannot write cheerfully.

The cause of ancient literature has received a severe blow from the revolution. In many of the Pensions Greek is not taught at all, and few learn more of Latin than to enable them to point a dull period, by some common-place quotation. The deep and ample learning of the Port-Royal and Sorbonne is no longer known. It expired with Villoison. They attempt to supply its place, by multiplying translations, and these to be sure fall

'thick as autumnal leaves That strew the vale of Vallambrosa.'

By the way, the very number of these translations affords one of the best answers to the opinion of La Motte, Perault, Voltaire, Condorcet, &c. that they render useless the knowledge of the original languages. For if it be possible to transfuse the beauties of the ancients into modern languages, some one translator must surely have by this time succeeded; but that this is not the case, the multitude of new attempts is a sufficient confession. If, indeed, notwithstanding our marble is of equal beauty, and our colours of equal brilliancy, it has been found a hopeless task to attempt to copy the charms of the Venus and Apollo, and the sublimity of the Transfiguration and Last Judgment, how can it be imagined that in languages of far in feriour flexibility, harmony, and grace, we should re-produce the wonders of the eloquence of

an

tiquity, or revive the sublime raptures of its bards?

This poverty of classical knowledge is followed by its inevitable attendant, incorrect taste. In our inquiry into the causes of corrupt eloquence in any country, it is here that we always find our answer; it is by this, for instance, that we at once account for the false rhetorick, for the tumid, unnatural, and distorted kind of writing, which we every where see in America. It is commonly a shrewd symptom of the decline of taste, when nothing will do that is not terse, sententious, antithetical, and pointed; when every one is run away with a passion for calembourgs, bon mots, and the various forms of le bel esprit. I would by no means deny that there are still fine writers in France; there certainly are many, many well-read, classical scholars. But it is not to be denied, that the majority, and those too the most popular, have the faults at which I have hinted. They are full of exaggeration, and swell of ostentation without riches, of artificial. passion, and pathos made by rule. Those higher flights of composition, which a fine writer hazards seldom, and which indeed owe their effect to their rare occurrence, they scatter in every page. What can be written in a more pitiful style than the proclamations to the army, the occasional flourishes in the bulletins, &c. although they are said in Paris to bear traces of an imperial hand? They would disgrace Touissaint or Dessalines.Of the present state of French poetry, I have little to say. Delille, now extremely old, who has formed himself on the model of the English poets, and who, in truth, deserves his fame, must be considered as belonging to the last age. On the whole, I suspect that

one is safe in saying, that, with the exception of Delille, there is no poet at present, who will outlive his age.

It would not be wonderful, how ever, if the spirit of literary enterprise were more completely extinguished than it actually is; for never has the world before seen a despotism over the press so extensive, systematick, and effectual, as is now exercised in France. Even under the most savage of the Roman emperours, Juvenal could publish his satires, though not perhaps with personal impunity; but in France, the author of any thing offensive is not only punished himself, but his work is rendered harmless by being completely suppressed before it sees the light. The Institute itself, though it must be allowed to be, in general, tolerably complaisant and docile, sometimes falls under his majesty's displeasure. They proposed,several years since, to publish a revised edition of the Dictionary of the Academy. I

saw, in their transactions, the memoir, which was drawn up, and the names of the committee raised to execute this intention; but on inquiring for the work, I was told, that though it had been completed, and actually passed through the press, not a copy of it had ever publickly appeared. It seems, that they had thought it necessary to record the new words, which had been coined in the revolution, together with the new meanings which had been given to old words, and to subjoin to them the names of their authors. Under the word usurpateur, they maliciously mentioned a new sense given to it by the emperour, in a speech to the senate, and subjoined the authority of Bonaparte. For this and some similar liberties, the whole impres

sion was sequestrated. A poor bookseller ventured to republish Delille's poem, La Pitié, from the original text, as it appeared in London; he was rewarded by the seizure of the work, and apartments were assigned to himself in the temple. It would be easy to collect many similar anecdotes.

These observations you will find hasty, and perhaps incorrect. They were made during a short residence of less than six months, confined exclusively to Paris. It is not, perhaps however unjust, to judge of the literature of the country, by what appears in the metropolis. The influence of a capital is every where great; but it is more so in France than in any other country of Europe. The darling object of pride and boast with a Frenchman is 'la belle,' 'la mag-. nifique ville,' and we have seen this prejudice retain its force, when almost all others, however ingrained and inveterate, were loosened and swept away. We have seen Paris, during the revolution, quietly give law to the remotest provinces of the empire, wield, at the will of its mobs, their passions and opinions, produce every where an immediate imitation of its habits, however frantick and absurd, and obtain unresisting and implicit acquiescence in every new master, which its whim might impose.There is another reason why Paris should be the centre of the literature of the nation. It is not in France as in England, where, in every town of any importance, you find ample publick and private libraries, and of course some literary society. So far from this, especially since the destruction of the convents, and provincial colleges, that a man of letters is compelled to resort to Paris, not only for patrons and associates in his

studies, but even for the means of pursuing them. These means and facilities for cultivating literature, are, in truth, admirable and unequalled. They are extremely well described in Wyttenbach's life of Ruhnken, and as it may amuse you to see the manner in which Paris affected a scholar and a Dutchman,* I am going to transcribe the passage :

"Nullus, aiebat, in toto terrarum orbe locus, item ut Lutetia, cum abundat omni omnium artium doctrinarumque materiâ & supellectile, tum adfluit omni omnis generis voluptatum deliciarumque instrumento. Ne dicam de ingentibus ædificiorum operibus, basilicis, templis aliis, eorumque et magnitudine et magnificentia; confluit in eam urbem quidquid et arte effici, et ingenio excogitari, potest, cum ad deleniendos oculos, tum ad oblectandos aures, tum ad reliquos sensus titillandos et ac mulcendos. Igitur et doctrinæ studiosus habet, quo descendat, placando genio honestum diverticulum; et voluptarius habet, quo se a Sirenibus ad Musas attollat opportunum receptaculum. Omnes ad Musas aditus unicuique patent et aperti sunt, si quidem publico & communi usui dicata sunt Musea; ubi, cùm libri omnis generis expromuntur, tum spectanda exponuntur artium liberalium opera manu

He was born in Germany, but became so much attached to Holland, that he refused an offer to return home, because, says his biographer, Batavæ terræ suavitatibus captus.

facta, Picturæ, Statuariæ, Sculp turæ, Numismaticæ ; aliarum : materies et opificia item physicæ, anatomica, medicine, mechanica, astronomica, historiæ naturalis, et nullius non disciplinæ. Sed non minus in promptu et obviæ versantur voluptatum illecebrarumque varie formæ, quibus ubique occurentibus et blandé accidentibus, qui non convertatur aliquando, is aut ferreus sit, aut perfectus e Stoica schola, sapiens.'-Vita D. Ruhnkenii. Auct. Wyttenbach, pag. 370.

His visit was made to Paris before the revolution, but his remarks at present have lost none of their truth. The pleasures, which he seems to have found it so difficult to resist, have certainly not diminished in number or attraction. Indeed the Parisians seem to have returned to more than their ancient dissipation. They have learned no wisdom from the horrours through which they have passed. The volcano has exploded, and spent its fury; and while its lava is scarcely cool, they have already again built upon it, and the soil is more fruitful than ever in folly and crime. Like the Romans under the emperours, as described by Juvenal, they have ceased to be interested in publick affairs, and demand only panem et circenses,' bread and dissipation. Their most serious occupation is to discuss the merits of a player, or to decide on the attitudes of a dancer. But I grow weary of the subject.

Adieu.

Vol. IV. No. 6. ૦૧

For the Anthology.

REMARKER, No. 22.

Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ.

THE desire of gain is so strong and general, that mankind, in their anxiety to attain the end, are very apt to be indifferent about the means hence the necessity of laws to secure the possession of property from fraud and violence, and which, from the severity of their nature and the rigour with which they are executed, are generally sufficient to answer the purpose for which they were instituted. But though men in civil society may feel tolerably secure against forgery and theft, yet there are many who become the prey of the unfeeling and unprincipled, and are deprived of what is justly their own by means, against which legislative wisdom cannot adequately provide..

Usury, the mean vice of low and sordid minds; expressly forbidden by the Deity, and prohibited by human institutions; insidious in its means, and pernicious in its consequences; is, by the cunning of its perpetrators, not only able to elude legal restrictions and escape punishment, but to find that extreme degree of toleration, which ought only to be allowed to the infirmities of nature, to difference of opinion, and errours of judgment. Against the highwayman, the housebreaker, and the pickpocket, every one will readily assist to render his neighbour secure, or join to pursue the offender and bring him to justice; but when misfortune presses, or temporary exigencies occur, which might call forth the offices of friendship, and

HORACE. Sat. 1. afford opportunities for generosity to display itself; it is then that the usurer stretches forth his grasping hand, and with unrelenting cruelty augments his exactions in proportion as increasing distresses are calculated to excite compassion in the humane and just. In other countries the common prey of the usurer is the thoughtless heir, and dissipated man of fashion; but here his victims are the industrious tradesman, and well-meaning adventurer in commerce, who, when once entangled, seldom escapes till he is reduced to beggary; while his oppressor exultingly counts the thousands he has gotten by means more base and criminal, than those for which many wretches suffer on a gallows; is enabled by his riches to direct the monied and civil establishments of his country, acquires an extensive influence over his fellow-citizens, is admitted into the best society, nay, is even courted with that respectful attention, which is due alone to venerable wisdom, unsullied integrity, and disinterested virtue.

In a country, young and populous like this, when the events of the european world have opened so many avenues to mercantile pursuits to an enterprising people, it may frequently happen, that the regular trade of the time may justify a man in giving considerably more than the common interest for money; and what a fair trade will justify one in giving, will justify another in receiving, because he could make the same profits as

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